Two years ago, I decided to build a crypto exchange in India.

Hey,

I want to do something different this week.

No market breakdown. No trading lessons. Just me talking to you directly, because something is happening with FedHabit that I’ve been wanting to share for a while, and this week feels like the right time.

Two years ago, I decided to build a crypto exchange in India.

I knew it would be hard. I didn’t fully know what hard meant.

The first thing you learn when you try to build a regulated financial product in India is that the rules are written in pencil. What’s acceptable today might not be tomorrow. You can do everything right and still be told: not yet.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is the regulatory body that governs crypto exchanges in India. To legally operate, you need their registration. Without it, you’re either offshore, grey, or not operating at all.

We went through the process once before. Built the product, prepared the documentation, went through the evaluation but came back without registration. Not because we were doing anything wrong, but because we hadn’t met certain criteria they had set. Specific, technical criteria. The kind that feels arbitrary until you understand the framework they’re operating within, and then they make a kind of sense, even if the timing hurts.

So we fixed it. Spent months understanding exactly what was required, restructuring what needed to be restructured, building what needed to be built. The compliance work that goes into a regulated crypto exchange in India is not small. It’s AML frameworks, transaction monitoring, KYC infrastructure, policy documentation that runs into hundreds of pages. Ruchika, our compliance lead, has probably read more RBI circulars than most people at the RBI.

We’re going back.

I’m not going to say exactly when or announce anything prematurely. But we’re in the process again, and this time we’ve done the work properly.

I’m telling you this not to build hype. I’m telling you because Crypto Cult has always been about being honest with the people reading it, and you deserve to know what we’re actually building and why it’s taking the time it’s taking.

India is one of the most complicated places in the world to build a crypto company. The RBI has publicly pushed for prohibition. The tax structure is punishing. The banking infrastructure for crypto is fragile. And yet 39 million people in this country hold crypto, mostly on platforms that are either offshore or operating under continuous regulatory uncertainty.

That’s the problem FedhaBit is trying to solve. An exchange that’s actually built for India. INR deposit/withdrawals, FIU registered (super soon…), built for the trader who wants a clean, compliant way to trade crypto in rupees, not just the one who’s willing to take the risk of going offshore.

Quick market update

Since last week’s edition, Bitcoin has been trading between $62,000 and $65,000, holding mostly flat. Risk appetite improved slightly on falling oil prices and easing US-Iran tensions, but the recovery is fragile. ETF inflows were positive for most of July before two days of $465 million in outflows last week. Institutional money is still not fully committed.

The Fed held rates this week as expected. BTC didn’t move dramatically either way, which is actually a decent sign. The market isn’t pricing in chaos. It’s waiting.

Two exchanges, BitMEX and BitMart, announced shutdowns this week. Some people are calling this a bottom signal. It isn’t necessarily that. Platforms closing is a sign the market is stressed, not that the stress is over. What it does mean is that the consolidation happening in the industry is real, and the exchanges that survive it will be the ones that built properly.

That’s all we’re trying to be.

See you next week.

Neel

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